Egypt is a member of the United Nations and the African Union. It has ratified many United Nations human rights conventions, undertaking international commitments to adhere to the universal human rights stan‑ dards laid down in these documents. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented growing concerns across the board about the worsening human rights situation in the country.25 Egypt is ranked 134 of 153 countries for gender equality in the 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, a very low global ranking. While the gender gap in net enrolment rates in pre-university education in Egypt has almost disappeared, the gender gap in employment still exists and is a major challenge for the country’s development plans.26 Recent analytical reports show that the female literacy rate increased over the last four decades, to 69.5 percent in 2019.27 However, despite this increase, the literacy rate for Egyptian women shows disparities and continues to pose an important development issue. Women’s political participation has seen progress in the new parliamentary term (2021–2026), where women won 27 percent of seats in Parliament (148 of 596), the highest representation since women gained the right to vote and run for office in 1957. While this is a great accomplishment for Egypt, it remains low compared to other countries in the region such as Jordan, Tunisia or Morocco. Women’s increased political participation in Egypt is linked to commitments made to promote gender equality through the ratification of international gender equality standards.28 Egypt has ratified a number of international gender equality standards. These include the International Convention on the Political Rights of Women; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW);29 and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Egypt is not yet party to the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women. Gender-based violence (GBV) is prevalent in Egypt and, despite being illegal, female genital mutilation (FGM) remains one of the main obstacles to the protection of Egyptian women today. According to the 2021 Human Development Report (HDR),30 89.5 percent of Egyptian girls and women aged 18–64 years have undergone FGM. In response to this problem, the Egyptian Government adopted the National FGM Abandonment Strategy 2016–2020, which aims to reduce rates of FGM, enforce legislation criminalizing FGM, educate the community about its harms, and increase punishments for doctors who perform it. Under the auspices of the SDS, an Egyptian Women’s Strategy 2030 was also adopted as a means to enhance gender mainstreaming and the fulfilment of women’s rights. This strategy is aligned with previous national gender strategies.31 Egypt’s situation with regard to natural resources, the environment and climate change is very much defined by its geographical location. Most of Egypt’s land is desert, with only the Nile River providing a narrow strip of very fertile land making up less than 5 percent of Egypt’s area, and 95 percent of the population lives within 20 kilometres (km) of the Nile River and its delta.32 Egypt is susceptible to a range of natural 25 26
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OHCHR (2019) Egypt Universal Periodic Review Outcome Statement. UNDP (2021) Human Development Report: Egypt: https://www.eg.undp.org/content/egypt/en/home/library/human_development/ egypt-human-development-report-2021.html See: http://ghdx.healthdata.org/organizations/central-agency-public-mobilization-and-statistics-capmas-egypt OECD (2018) Women’s Political Participation in Egypt: Barriers, opportunities and gender sensitivity of select political institutions: https://www.oecd.org/mena/governance/womens-political-participation-in-egypt.pdf Egypt was the first Arab country to ratify CEDAW but retains reservations to Articles 2 (para 9), 16 and 29 (para 2). UNDP (2021) Human Development Report: Egypt, p. 203. The Gender Strategy (2014 - 2017) was extended for two years and the current Gender Strategy (2020–2023) aims at GEWE interventions. The context overview is summarized from the UNDP Middle Income Country Thematic Evaluation (2020), specifically the Egypt case study, the UNDP country office responses to the pre-evaluation questionnaire, and the ROAR context summaries.
Chapter 1. BACKGROUND AND introduction
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